The Simpsons (animation)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Before we go any further, it must be said that anything illogical, inconsistent or just downright incorrect in this show can be given the same simple explanation: a wizard did it.choice of work (nuclear power).
  • It's well established that Matt Groening exists in the universe of The Simpsons, where he's the creator of Futurama. This mostly averts the Celebrity Paradox, but it makes you wonder...would Futurama still have gotten made if Groening hadn't become famous as the creator of the mega-hit The Simpsons? Also: if he wasn't occupied with The Simpsons early in his career, did Futurama come out a lot earlier in this universe? Did Futurama start out as shorts on the Tracey Ullman Show? (Kind of makes you wonder what the 1989 versions of the cast look like...)
    • Plausible answer: his career started with a different show in The Simpsons that, unlike The Simpsons, eventually ended at, I dunno, season 7, and was fantastically popular. Futurama came afterwards, on a different network, that cancelled it after...say...fourteen episodes, just long enough for it to become a cult sensation.
    • Probably the above scenario with the different show being Life in Hell, the idea Groening originally intended to present to The Tracey Ullman Show before deciding against it at the last minute. Supported by the Life In Hell merchandise sometimes seen around Springfield, and offering an interesting take on What Could Have Been.
  • In "Marge on the Lam," why did Homer get ballet confused with seeing a little bear driving a mini-car at the circus?
    • Hell, he's not the only one. Lenny had exactly the same misconception.
      • Because they're stupid, and that's funny.
      • Bear + Valet = Ballet?
  • In the "Homerazzi" couch gag showing Homer going through evolution (with Moe devolving into a rat creature): Does this mean Moe evolved from rats or did the rats evolve from Moe?
    • Yes.
      • Probably the latter, considering he's devolving, but it's probably just a sight gag about Moe's ugliness and primitive nature.


  • Why didn't the Simpsons buy one of those baby translators for Maggie?
    • Why didn't Herb give them one free? Why NO ONE has one in later shows? Why? WHY? WHYYYYYY??? (Maybe weekly reset, or they don't care about Maggie enough.)
      • The baby translator, as previously said, had ramifications so far-reaching and society-altering that the writers placed in under Negative Continuity.
      • Would you want your baby's cry's, coos, and gurgles translated in Uncy Herb's voice?
      • The translator doesn't work on pacifier sucking noises.
    • See Reed Richards Is Useless.
  • While the episode "Round Springfield" was a superb episode, one part seemed a little strange. Why are both Dr. Hibbert and Dr. Nick performing surgery on Bart? Isn't that like mixing oil and water? On the other hand, it did give us this:

Dr. Nick: Hey, I smell gas. Pleasant gas. Night-night gas.

    • Maybe the surgery was so complex that it would have required two doctors to perform.
      • The question was more why Dr. Hibbert and a certified quack ("Calm down, you're going to get skin failure.") are doing surgery.
        • There are several episode where it's hinted that Hibbert is a bit of a quack himself.
        • Even if so, it's not nearly as blatant as Dr. Nick, and as the original poster said: oil and water.
    • Because Dr. Hibbert and Dr. Nick are the only two surgeons in Springfield.
  • Maximum Homerdrive: "Maybe it's time we ditched the high tech gizmos and went back to driving like our daddies did... Using our hands and our wits... it has meaning and dignity... Nah. Let's just find some other scam."
    • So in this world, there really is a chip that can drive a truck for you, flawlessly, around windy cliff roads? And the "dignified" thing to do is to hide its existence from the world and continue to make a living driving with your flawed (and speed-addled) brains and hands? I'm pretty sure that *is* another scam.
      • The scam part of it was that with the automatic driving devices, there really wasn't any particular reason to have the drivers in the cab, and thus no particular reason to pay them. It's not a "scam" for them to actually drive the trucks, since that's what they're being paid for, your odd approach to human imperfection aside.
  • Don't get me wrong; I loved the episode "Homer to the Max", but one part of it was a little confusing. Why was Marge grossed out, or at least very weirded out, by the idea of actually having sex with Homer instead of just snuggling with him? Remember the escapades of "Natural Born Kissers"?
    • It was Homer changing his name to Max Power that weirded her out, not the sex.
    • And it was also Homer describing sex with Max Power as "Strap[ping] yourself in and feel[ing] the G's." It was Marge basically reacting to how out of character Homer has become due to his name change.
  • This troper has always been annoyed by the ending of the episode "The Front". Grampa wins a writing award for the Itchy & Scratchy episodes Lisa and Bart wrote with his name on them, and at the ceremony he goes off on a rant about how sick and horrible the cartoons (which he'd never seen before) are, and gets booed off the stage. Okay, whatever. But why does Lisa agree with him about a cartoon she helped write?
    • Maybe she wanted to express her creativity in a way that the public would see. As a child, and a fan of Itchy and Scratchy, she saw the medium of ghost writing episodes as a way of doing that. Sure the show goes against her morals, but at least her work got on TV. I watch some things that I wouldn't agree with in the real world, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching them. And before you go on about how she doesn't get any credit on the work, she's a child. Children don't get credit for writing professionally! Haven't you read Ender's Game?
    • Didn't she satisfy her goals? Wasn't the basis of the plot that Lisa and Bart thought they could write better episodes than the ones they had been watching?
  • Why did Homer and Marge take Bart off of the Focusyn? Sure, it was making him crazy, but he was completely correct about everything he freaked out about. Plus overdosing didn't appear to have any negative side effects.
    • Because they were being good parents and decided that Barts happyness was more important than grades?
    • He might have been right, but he went completely insane. I mean, he steals a tank for God's sake, I'd take him off the drugs too.
  • When Reverend Lovejoy and wife leave Springfield, why does Marge say, "It's as if God has left Springfield"? Is it possible that their church is the only church in the whole town, even only considering Presbyterians?
    • It's possible. Springfield only has a population of about 25,000. Unless the writers need it to be bigger, of course.
      • Wait. Springfield has a set-in-stone population?
      • This troper's town of 8000 has more than fifty churches. Just sayin'.
    • Presbylutheran. To be more precise, Western American Reformed Presbylutheran. Anyway, other episodes have established E-piss-copal (Lovejoy's phrasing, not mine) and Catholic churches. I can't remember if "She of Little Faith" included other Christian places of worship, but it's clear that other ways of finding God, as it were, exist in Springfield.

      Though to answer your question, it's possible that Lovejoy is one of the most highly influential men of faith in Springfield of any faith and that's how losing him would be like losing God.
    • Dr. Hibbert began attending a more "boisterous" church.
  • Lisa and PETA. You'd think a girl like her would know about them. Then again, she does go back and forth between being wise beyond her years and having the mindset of a child. Plus, not that many people know much about PETA.
    • Maybe Lisa believes all those crazy stories about PETA are just propaganda made up by the conservative media?
      • Didn't Bart say that Lisa was in PETA, after Marge refused to let him sign up for the army? "I think she just answers the phone", was Marge's response.
  • In "In Marge We Trust", why did Ned keep running from the bullies throughout the night? Surely it would've been better to just give in and just let them beat him up?
    • It wasn't just the fact that he kept running that was weird. Apparently, Ned's impressively ripped muscles are just for show.
      • Impressively ripped muscles or not, Ned is a total sissy. He wouldn't consider letting himself get beat up, or beating up the bullies as an option.
  • In "The Homer of Seville," why does Homer play Rodolfo and Count Almaviva although they are both tenor roles and Homer is clearly a baritone?
  • Why oh why, aren't there many teenagers shown in The Simpsons? I'd just thought of that, other than the bullies at Springfield Elementary (Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney [even though later episodes reveal that Kearney isn't a teenager; he just looks like one], Laura Powers, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen, and the college geeks from "Homer Goes to College" and "Faith Off," the teenage population seems to be extremely low for a small town. It bothers me especially when later episodes show evidence of Springfield University, not to mention Homer/Marge's high school flashbacks.
    • Possibly because there are no teenage Simpsons. There's a baby, some kids, adults, and seniors, but no teens.
    • On the audio commentary for the short-lived cartoon series Mission Hill, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein state that they created the show as a response to exactly this (well, not just teenagers, but also young college graduates. Close enough).
  • In the episode "Hurricane Neddy", it's stated that the Flanderses don't have insurance because Ned considers it a form of gambling. This wasn't a throwaway gag - the family's lack of insurance meant they couldn't have their house rebuilt, and the shoddy job the townsfolk did when they rebuilt it out of charity broke the dam and caused Ned to unleash all his pent-up anger. However, Ned is shown driving a car in several episodes. Maybe America is different, but don't you need insurance to drive?
    • Ned probably has the legal minimum required insurance for his car. But it still doesn't make sense that he doesn't have home-owners' insurance unless he owned that house free and clear. Mortgage lenders require the buyer to have property insurance as a way of protecting the lender's investment.
      • Who says Ned didn't buy the house in full in the first place? If he thinks insurance is wrong, surly he finds something wrong with loaning money.
        • It's also possible that he inherited the house.
    • America isn't different. You need insurance and your license on you to drive. This doesn't stop people.
      • Yeah, but Ned has always been shown to be incredibly law-abiding. Driving without insurance strikes me as exactly the sort of thing he wouldn't do.
        • Well it looks like he's got a moral de-diddly-lemma there. What do you do when your moral system says you should follow the law, yet the law goes against your moral system? He probably read over Matthew 22:15-22 a few dozen times, then called Reverend Lovejoy in the middle of dinner to resolve that doozy of a choosy.
          • Marry me.
      • In California at least, you have to have proof of insurance or a certain amount on deposit. Also, maybe Ned sees a difference between insurance-against-acts-of-man versus -against-acts-of-God.
    • It's established in one episode that Ned is actually a senior citizen - chances are that he's already paid off any mortgage he originally took out on the house; and while he had a mortgage, he would've been required to have a certain minimum amount of insurance on the place by his mortgage lender, which he would have abided with; ditto with needing to have minimum insurance on his car. But he doesn't get any more insurance than is absolutely necessary (obviously he doesn't have any life insurance then).
    • Real-life Muslims are against insurance for similar reasons, and usury is outlawed in Islamic countries. What do Muslims in the US do when buying a car? If they're super-religious, maybe they feel a little guilty while signing the papers. In Ned Flanders' case, just make that "very, very guilty".
      • Or they may set up a surety-bond, or certified deposit which many states allow as an alternative. It's also common for many Christian groups. Even the Amish.
          • There's actually no dilemma. The compulsory insurance required for driving is liability insurance i.e. the type that protects the other guy in case of an accident.
    • Along with everything else, remember that the show has never been strong on continuity in the first place. In one episode, Rod and Todd tell Bart that Ned considers dice to be wicked, and they only move one space at a time when playing "Good Samaritan". And yet, in another episode that includes a flashback to the 1980s, Rod, Todd and Bart are shown playing the same board game with dice.
      • Well, Ned's religious fanaticism has increased so much over time that he's the namesake for Flanderization. It's possible that in the past he wasn't extreme enough to think that playing board games with dice is a sin. And even if we're supposed to think he's always been as extreme as he is, it's possible that it never occurred to him that it would be problematic to use dice for any reason - even for pure entertainment (as opposed to gambling)- until, say, he heard a televangelist say so.
        • Also note that in the flashback, the dice were in a plastic bubble that was shaken to move the dice, that is to say, kept the children from touching the wicked dice directly.
    • Ned may only consider comprehensive insurance to be gambling. For legal purposes, you only need liability insurance to drive a car. Since liability insurance would only benefit anyone you crashed into instead of yourself, Ned's probably okay with that. ("It's more just spending money so the other person doesn't have a bad day-diddly-arino!")
  • Why does everybody have yellow skin?
    • That's just how the show portrays Caucasians. If you watch some of the early episodes (like the one where Marge goes to jail for a month), the show's Asian characters are depicted as having pale white skin.
    • Alternate universe where man evolved slightly differently?
      • Then why do the Hills (of King of the hill, in their cameo appearance) and the Archie gang lack it?
        • Because that's what they look like in their home media; I guess that's honoured when it comes to fictional guest stars.
        • Besides, this troper remembers the promos for 'Bart Starr' depicting the Hills with yellow skin, and it just looked weird.
          • Then why did The Critic's Jay Sherman appear yellow during his two guest appearances?
            • The Critic was a Gracie Films production. They were keeping it in the family; they might have considered animating the Hill family in the classic style an insult.
    • Because Matt Groening can't draw.
      • The Animation Studio is the one that originally did that, not Matt.
    • Or he lost his peach coloured crayon.
    • If they were flesh coloured, some "hair" would actually be pointy bits of flesh, especially for Bart.
    • I think they said it was originally to catch viewers eyes, and it stuck
      • This is true, they did it because they wanted people to think the colour on their TV was off.
    • Groening has also stated that he felt flesh-coloured cartoon characters looked weird, noting the creepiness of Mickey Mouse being made Caucasian in Fantasia, when he had always been a cartoony literal black and white. I guess he got over this by Futurama.
    • IMDB.com says the characters were made yellow to catch the attention of anyone flipping through channels, and IMDB never lies.
    • It was caused by radiation from the Nuclear Power Plant and waste run-off from the other polluting industries that Springfield seems to hold.
    • Actually, the way I heard it was that all the Simpsons' odd anatomical stuff, like yellow skin, overbite, and hair that's indistinguishable from skin, were because Groening's original drawings were intended just to give the animation crew a general idea. He was actually surprised when they copied his rough designs exactly.
    • Matt's original drawings for The Simpsons (which he came up with in ten minutes while waiting outside James L. Brooks' office) were in black and white. It was the idea of one of the original colour designers on the Tracey Ullman Show (her name escapes me) to make them yellow. The idea was so they would look different from anything else on television. Matt loved the plan and considers it one of the keys to the show's early success. Conversely, he refused to colour the Futurama cast yellow because he wanted to send the message that the show wasn't just going to be "The Simpsons in space."
    • I said SKIN (as in the muzzle, arms, and belly), not fur (the blue and possibly white stuff)!
      • There's a video where David Silverman explains why the Simpsons are yellow. See here.
  • If Homer has brown hair, and Marge has blue hair, how are Bart, Lisa and Maggie all blonde?
    • A. Marge dyes her hair. She could be blonde, but I think she was brunette in a flashback episode. B. Recessive genes.
    • Homer's mom has red hair (explainin Bart's hair, BTW) and Marge's hair is naturally blue. (BTW, ever notice how people with blue hir have blond children? Like in Sailor Moon?) Marge once burned her hair brown with an iron (Really) nd made her whole hair brown for that night.
      • Actually, (as far as I know) Marge's natural hair colour is unknown. The reason her hair is blue is explained by Homer in the episode "Secrets of a Successful Marriage"; "She's been as grey as a mule since she was seventeen".
        • In "Fear of Flying" Marge is depicted as a 4-7 year old to look exactly as she does today, except smaller. Same hair style, hair color, dress and pearls.
        • Didn't women that went grey used to dye their hair blue? Around the time Matt Groening's mother would have gone grey?
          • One of my older aunts did, a very dark blue, so you might be onto something.
  • In The Simpsons Movie, why didn't anybody try to get out of the city by digging under the dome?
    • This was lampshaded by Lou in The Fool Monty.
    • Springfield has an average IQ of about 60, and that would be lower without Lisa, Dr. Hibbert and Professor Frink pulling them up.
      • Plus there were helicopters, soldiers and Jeeps around it to ensure no-one got out. If everyone tried to burrow through the same hole, half of them would be drugged and shipped back in by the end of the day.
      • Yes, but let's not forget that Springfield has its own Mensa chapter; you'd at least expect them to come up with some sort of plan...
        • I remember the episode where Mensa featured. The members probably started arguing about whether to use the giant laser or the giant drill, and got all into a sulk.
    • Frink had an acid drill that could get trough anything. It was just outside the dome.
    • They could've done when no one's watching like in The Great Escape. They were able to rescue Bart from the well by digging to the bottom.
      • Only because they had Sting to help...
  • I have another question about the Movie. While it was a funny joke, how did Moe become Emperor of Springfield? It seems more like something Mr. Burns or Sideshow Bob would do.
    • Wasn't Bob in Italy at the time? As for Burns, when the situation went to hell, maybe the people decided to rise up against him and bring him down from his power for once. Heck, maybe Burns did become Emperor, but then got overthrown by Moe.
      • I forgot about the Italy part. Now that I think about it, maybe it's a good thing Sideshow Bob didn't become Emperor; he probably would have turned Springfield into an Amish community.
      • On the other hand, if Bob had been around, Springfield probably would have prospered under the dome. If only to get them to take off the dome so he could go find Bart and kill him.
    • Um... was Moe ever Emperor according to anybody other than Moe?
      • Well that dome was making them all crazy.
  • Up to 18th season, how come Springfield still allows Homer Simpson to live? As far as I can remember, one of his few good accomplishments to the city was preventing a nuclear meltdown he himself caused by being careless. These few moments aside, most of the city's demise was his fault, including turning the whole town in a gigantic trash dump and forcing the city to be moved 10 miles aside. And, if you wish, in The Movie, he was not only the one to blame for trapping the city in the dome and condemn the whole population to be exploded with it, but also ruined almost everyone's chance to escape the dome. Back to question: what is keeping people of Springfield from throwing him away of town(or even killing)?
    • To be fair, most of the really outrageous stuff only occurred in the later seasons, when they turned Homer into a Jerkass. Before that, his blunders were mostly personal or low-key, and not to the level of sheer lunacy he climbs to in later seasons.
      • They did try to kill him in The Movie. Also, did you watch the episode with Frank Grimes?
        • Yep, I know. But it's still too few times for my common sense to bear. Actually, every time I watch the series lately I think to myself "Yep, I know exactly how Frank Grimes felt now..."
  • In the episode "Yokel Chords", if Bart was able to get spaghetti to fake a Dark Stanley murder, why couldn't he just eat the spaghetti instead of making up the story about Dark Stanley?
    • Maybe he wasn't in the mood for spaghetti.
    • They explained this, Bart himself came to the realization he made up Dark Stanley because he crazes the attention (more then spaghetti).
  • In the episode "Itchy and Scratchy the Movie", couldn't Bart just get the Itchy and Scratchy Movie DVD instead of waiting forty years to see a replay in the theater? On another hand, why would Homer go as far as to ban Bart from seeing the movie ever? I think that was the first sign of Homer being a jerkass.
    • Not if you take the ending as canon. Homer preventing Bart from seeing the movie made him straighten out and become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court instead of a sleazy male stripper. Or maybe Bart became both, like the late Earl Warren.
    • DVDs weren't around when that episode was written.
      • VHS then, same concept, really.
      • Because they had a Beta, and Snake stole it.
      • He probably did see it on DVD/VHS when he moved out, but pretended not to for Homer's sake.
      • He probably just wanted to finally see it on the big screen. It's unlikely Homer was willing or able to prevent him from never ever ever seeing it, but sometimes for some people a film on DVD just isn't the same as at the cinema, especially one hyped up so much like this one -- there's old movies I've seen that I'd drop everything to see at the cinema if I happened across a screening. He wasn't exactly hunting out the movie; they just happened to come across it, got to reminiscing and decided 'what the hell'? As for Homer's line, he could simply have been joking.
  • In the movie, whatever became of the pig?
    • I assumed it was killed and eaten by the mob.
    • In a deleted scene, it shows the pig, Santa's Little Helper and the mutated chipmunk helping rebuild the Simpsons' home, and the pig shows up in one of the couch gags at the beginning of the next TV season. So it's probably still alive.
      • It does appear in the next Halloween episode, so it's probably alive somehow. Not that it counts as solid evidence, but still...
      • In one of the comics, Krusty tries to find the pig as his commercials were popular. He gets disguised as Ploptimus Prime and escapes with the family. I forget where he ended up. I think Cletus's farm?
  • Why do the writers always give Homer such a low weight? According to one episode he is 239 lbs. That might sound a lot, but for a heavily built man over six feet tall and given how much he eats it isn't actually particularly much.
    • When he says he had a glandular condition, he's not in denial. He is only slightly overweight, but his glandular problem swells him out and makes him look fat.
      • What about the episode "King-Sized Homer" where Homer purposely gains weight so he can work from home? That wasn't a glandular problem.
      • The glandular problem described doesn't make any sense. If you have a glandular problem, it causes you to gain weight, not weigh the same and look plump. If something is swollen, what is it swollen with?
      • There are plenty of developmental disorders, congenital conditions, and drugs (primarily steroids or other therapy to treat autoimmune disorders) that result in low muscle tone and high relative body fat. Not to mention edema, which is essentially fluid buildup (an extreme version of this is actually the cause of elephantiasis). I've always imagined him to have a cartoon-surrealist version of lost muscle tone and edema brought on by extreme inactivity.
  • Major Fridge Logic in the episode "24 Minutes" (the 24 parody episode): how could Jimbo stay unmasked with the stink bomb opened, if one single drop made the hamster suffer that way?
    • Jimbo has no doubt set off a lot of stink bombs in his time (why else are they making a much more potent one?), he's probably built up an immunity to it.
  • Not something that bugs me, but is rather strange. In the beginning of the episode "The Last Temptation of Krust", Marge takes the kids shoe-shopping. Since when did Marge acknowledge the necessity of buying new shoes? In other episodes, she seems to think you only need one pair of shoes and you're set for life.
    • When did Marge ever say that having just one pair of shoes for life was good enough? I don't remember anything like that.
      • In one episode, she did react to someone having three pairs of shoes as "unnecessarily extravagant". But keep in mind that those shoes belonged to a fully grown woman; I'm sure she wouldn't object to buying her growing children a new pair of shoes occasionally. Also, keep in mind that she buys the shoes ridiculously over sized, so she probably only buys one pair every few years.
  • In Bart's Comet, the airport may have been on the other side of the only bridge out of town (which of course begs the question of how would they drive to outside places on the other side of town. Yeah, yeah, flexible geography but that still bugs me) but clearly there is at least one working helicopter that Arnie Pye was flying, so wouldn't that be a way to airlift some people out of town? They could have just as easily had him saying something like "And as I own the only helicopter in town, I'm outta here!" I know, I know, the town had to be doomed and Springfieldians are probably too stupid to think of any other means of escape, but... it bugs me!


  • Everyone is forgetting one thing that bugs this troper: how are The Simpsons able to go up to the celebrity guest stars without being pushed away by bodyguards and such, and what are all these celebrities doing in Springfield?
    • Wouldn't you want to visit a town that seems to have everything? As well as that, when a celebrity visits Springfield and consequently, the Simpson family, they have a chance to meet the most interesting characters on telly. Imagine the stories the family could tell!
    • It's especially odd considering the fact that in the episode "When You Dish Upon a Star" from the tenth season, Homer was court order to never be allowed within 500 miles of a celebrity.
  • In "The Springfield Files" how how HOW does Homer know the "alien" appears every Friday night after only seeing it once? I've tried wrapping my head around it every which way, but I just don't see how he could have possibly known that.
    • Homer's an idiot who based his hypothesis on insufficient data. He just happened to be right.
      • Not to mention that he said he saw the "alien" on Friday night, but he actually saw it at 1:00 AM, so technically it was Saturday morning.
        • And remember, there's a time frame, so they probably couldn't show Homer and Bart seeing the alien again. But you're probably right. Rule of Funny, yes?
    • He was basing his theory on the alien's resemblance to Urkel. Which means there is no way he could have been wrong.
  • There was an episode where Homer headed up a bowling team, and Mr. Burns became a member because he sponsored it and could use his position to do so. With the exception of Mr. Burns, both teams seem to roll nothing but strikes. So, there comes a point where Homer's team is two points behind and Mr. Burns is the one that has to score the points. How does that work when it was shown that each of the Holy Rollers were as good as the good members of Homer's team?
    • Homer's team seemed to have improved greatly over the course of the season. They might actually have been better than the Rollers when you consider that they made it to the league championship despite the handicap of having Burns on the team.
    • Speaking from experience, two really good bowlers can lift a mediocre bowler quite a bit. WE tied for second place and I was scoring just over 100 points a game. This is not as far fetched as it seems.
  • The son of Frank Grimes. That bugs me on several levels. Firstly, that Frank Grimes has a son in the first place. Secondly, he looks just as old as Frank at the time of his death. What, did Frank sire him at the age of three? Thirdly, we discover that the long-suffering, inspiration-TV-snippet-inspiring Frank Grimes sired his son because he happens to like hookers. And finally, if Junior is an illegitimate child of a hooker and a good man too busy trying to improve his sad lot in life, how is it that he knows anything about his father's misfortune? I would have accepted the motivation of "Homer is a Jerkass and is deserving of killing" better than this "avenge my father" bullshit.
    • Frank seems like he was an absentee father to me. Junior probably has all sorts of dad issues, and Frank's death just brought it all to the surface and cause him to snap (insanity seems to run in the family.)
    • As surprisingly dark and edgy as "Homer's Enemy" was for The Simpsons, I got to admit it was kind of funny when Frank Grimes, Jr. said his father happened to like hookers. So, Mr. Perfect had a dark side.
      • It sounds more like a thoughtless Hand Wave. You can imagine some exchange between producer and writers: "Wait, but how does Grimes have a son? Wasn't he lonely in that episode he appeared?" "Um... he liked hookers?" "Well, that'll have to work..."
        • Possibly, he was born of a hooker and a man who might have looked like Frank Grimes, but wasn't. So therefore, his mother tried to pass it off as being born to Grimes because Grimes was a hard worker. Hey, Wild Mass Guessing, why not?
        • Grimes' life has been miserable. Being alone and not getting any respect, he visited a hooker to relieve stress.
    • Again, time may pass differently on the outside. Grimes, Senior and Junior may have spent most of their lives outside Springfield and only came in when the former found work and the latter had the opportunity to avenge his father.
    • I think what bugs me most is the fact that Junior would call himself by the last name Grimes, rather then his mother's last name.
      • Either Frank Jr. is ashamed of his mother for being a hooker (wouldn't you be?), he was raised in an orphanage and never knew his mother (in which case how did he learn about his father and Homer, yeah yeah, I know), or he took his father's name out of sentiment and/or so Homer would know damn well who he was avenging. Take your pick.
    • My two cents: Perhaps, to explain the age thing, Frank was really young, say, thirteen-fourteen? Bad schooling or growing up poorly, friends all had girlfriends who put out, he didn't, hired a hooker to compensate? Then, few years later, hooker came back and dumped the kid on him? Then, unable to hold him, a friend looked after the kid while Frank tried to keep in his son's life, but had to transfer to Springfield. Maybe the friend was a mechanic, and Grimey Jr became one while living with them.
  • Why hasn't Ned become a man of the cloth himself? He obviously knows the Bible cover to cover and does the best he can to live by it. He isn't even Catholic so being married and having children isn't a problem. What is stopping him?
    • A lot of gags hinge on his "Christian humility" being grotesquely hypertrophied; he really doesn't think much of himself. Why else would he treat Reverend Lovejoy as an authority on anything at all?
    • Maybe he just doesn't have the time? He's a single father running his own business, after all.
    • Ned isn't that much of a Bible expert. He forgets which animals the Four Horsemen ride and he seems to think God will flood the Earth again. Played for laughs, of course.
  • In the episode "Homer Badman" he had to take the babysitter home. Why? She showed up at the house without his help. She's a college student so she's definitely old enough to take care of herself. It doesn't seem likely that she walked to the house, since it looks like Homer's driving her through down town to get her back home, so it isn't an issue of letting someone walk home in the middle of the night. The only reason for it is to set the plot of the episode in motion. And usually that's just fine with me, but I woke up this morning with this gnawing on my brain and it's really, really bothering me. Let the most-likely-over-age-21 babysitter take her damn self home!
    • Perhaps it was meant to be a kind gesture for looking after the kids. Also, things can get rougher in some places when it gets dark.
    • It was a cheap way to get the plot going (i.e., the plot of Homer being branded a pervert when he takes the missing Venus candy off the baby-sitter's butt and the baby-sitter mistakes it for sexual harassment). The Simpsons does this a lot.
    • Possibly she had a ride to the place (say her friend) but no ride back. Or maybe she took the bus which only ran till a certain hour. Or perhaps she took a taxi and Homer was just being nice for taking care of the kids. Or maybe...


  • I know this might not sound like much of a Just Bugs Me entry, because I also know Homer isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the hardware store, but one of his running gags does just bug me. Why does Homer keep saying God doesn't exist when he's actually met Him? Sure it was by way of dreams, but still.
    • Negative Continuity.
    • The fact that he only met god in dreams seems like a pretty good reason to me.
    • Negative Continuity or no, didn't God return Moe's sushi bar back to a tavern in that rapture episode after Homer asked him that?
  • In the episode "When Flanders Failed", Mr. Burns is attempting to open a can but cannot because he is left-handed. All this while Smithers, who is right-handed, was just standing around doing nothing. Why didn't he just ask Smithers, considering Mr. Burns doesn't usually have any problem admitting to having trouble doing basic tasks that he could be expected to do, let alone one that would require some seriously counter-intuitive torquing?
    • Burns eventually does give in and ask Smithers to open the can: it's possible that it was a point of pride for him.
    • And this was well before "Homer the Smithers".
  • What with Gil's poverty, Barney's alcoholism and Moleman's many deaths?
  • What happened to Colin after The Movie and the 19th season premiere's opening?
    • Maybe Bart was right when he sang, "Lisa's got a boyfriend, that's she'll never see again!"
    • This one really bugged me, too. It would have been neat to see how Lisa would be like with a boyfriend. My guess is that it would change the series too much. He probably moved after the whole dome fiasco. A guy like that must've had a girlfriend back where he came from, too. If his dad's a musician he must move a lot.
  • In The Movie, how can Arnold Schwarzenegger be president? You have to be American-born to be president and Schwarzanegger was born in Austria.
    • Simpsons universe had a constitutional amendment which eliminated that requirement? That's how they got him to be president in Demolition Man.
    • For that matter, why not make Rainer Wolfcastle president? It's the essentially the exact same character. And I think there are very few people who wouldn't get the joke (same goes for the EPA guy sounding exactly like, but not being, Hank Scorpio).
      • Scorpio was going to be the villain, but was dropped for some reason. Must have been pretty far in if they brought Al Brooks back in to the voice. Also, Schwarzenegger was actually going to modelled after the Real Life version, but, again it was cut. Seizing control of the East Coast is probably a better ending for Scorpio than becoming head of the EPA, anyway.
        • Hank Scorpio is one of the most fan-beloved character of all in The Simpsons (Despite being in only a single episode), mostly due to his combination of ruthless supervillain and Benevolent Boss. To make him the straight-up villain, actively working against the Simpsons and the rest of Springfield, would have been a massive kick in the teeth to all the long-time fans.
      • They didn't make their Schwarzenegger ersatz President because they wanted to strawman an actual Republican politician, and then they were too lazy to even make him match the real thing. So they just used Wolfcastle and then called him Schwarzenegger.
  • Hmm, how and why would Mr. Burns, a self-proclaimed all-American man, have Red Chinese masters?
    • I'm guessing it's a reference to The Manchurian Candidate, so maybe Mr. Burns underwent the same kind of brainwashing procedure as the soldiers in that movie? Even if there's no brainwashing explanation, this is still the same man who expressed no guilt about stealing a trillion dollars from the U.S. government, nor for his actions that resulted in the trillion dollars going into Fidel Castro's hands (just as he was about to give up on maintaining the communist regime because it was bankrupt.) If the Chinese paid Mr. Burns off, it fits with his character that he would do their bidding.
    • You do know that Burns also made shells for the Nazis, like Oskar Schindler, don't you? Except that his worked, dammit!
      • I still like him more than George Steinbrenner.
  • Seriously, what's the deal with Smithers? I'm not talking about his being gay--that's perfectly normal. What I'm scratching my head over is the fact that he's attracted to a 100+-year old trilobite, as Snake once aptly described Mr. Burns. Is he one of those people who's just attracted to much older partners?
    • I don't think he is ever being shown as finding other old men attractive, so that's probably not it. More like, working with Mr. Burns and having to do everything for him gave him a lot of time to get to know him and spend with him, and seeing his power and personality and himself liking to be subservient... something clicked.
    • "As you can see, the real deal with Waylon Smithers is that he's Mr. Burns' assistant. He's in his early forties, is unmarried, and currently resides in Springfield. Thanks for asking!"
    • He might be attracted to Burns' power as well as the man himself. Then add on the fact that Burns is personally and professionally dependent on him...
    • Meh. As far as this troper is concerned, that's Smithers' business and his alone.
      • Just remember that Burns is Smithers' substitute father (after indirectly causing the death of his real father). He loves his "daddy", a little too much.
        • No evidence of him being a substitute father. Burns probably sent him to live with a foster family until he was old enough for boarding school. He was probably a mentor figure for the young Waylon.
    • Love doesn't have to be rational.
      • That was actually kind of sweet.
    • Word of God says that while Smithers is gay, he's really attracted to Mr. Burns, "if Burns was a woman, Smithers would be straight, he's a "Burnsexual"
      • Doesn't explain his dates with John and other gay men.
        • No, read what that says. He's gay because Burns is a man, and would be straight if Burns was a woman. His sexuality is determined by Burns' gender.
  • What is wrong with Marge's sundaes?
    • Cyanide. Or maybe it's the fact that she actually wants them to eat it. Would spinach have been so bad if your mom didn't dog you to eat it so much?
    • Or maybe it has blue hair in it, like the soup from the Mary Poppins parody or the casserole on the episode where Marge goes to jail for shoplifting.
    • Two words: chocolate laxatives.
    • On the subject of food, in the episode "Grade School Confidential", what was wrong with the oysters that it gave Martin's party guests terrible stomach-aches?
      • Seafood in general goes bad very easily if it's not properly refrigerated. The weather might have been too warm, and considering the Crapsack World this series is set in, the people handling the oysters probably didn't do a good job storing and transporting them.
        • That would explain why Martin's father was annoyed: "I told you we should have served cake instead of oysters!"
  • In "To Surveil With Love", the British guy they hired brought together seven people to monitor Springfield to keep crime down. Seconds later, when we see the surveilance room next, only Marge and Ned Flanders are left. What happened to the other people who were supposed to monitor things?
    • And how was it that nobody ever thought of knocking out the cameras until the end? The clearly didn't like the cameras being there.
    • The others got bored with it and quit. They were volunteers; the city didn't have the budget to pay full-time officers to man the station. And the citizens were either too afraid to knock out the cameras or didn't want to. Remember the cameras were approved by nearly everybody at the town meeting.


  • In the episode "Springfield Up", Homer fakes being rich by borrowing Mr. Burns' summer home, and explains that he did it by inventing a condiment pen. How on earth did he not get rich with that pen? It was a genius idea!
    • He was too dumb to actually try patenting it, and by the time someone pointed out what a good idea it was someone else had already stolen it? Or maybe he didn't actually invent one, and was somehow faking it when he demonstrated? I thought the same thing.
    • What bugs me is that no-one has made it in Real Life.


  • In the episode "Flaming Moe's", when Moe steals his idea, why doesn't Homer just sell the recipe to someone else? (OK, Homer's not too bright, but he tells his family, so any of them could have had the idea).


  • Everyone's talking about the couch gag for the most recent episode ("MoneyBART"), but what's with Lisa eating pepperoni pizza with the Little League team to celebrate their recent win?
    • It was an animation error. After the initial shot, Lisa's pizza appears to be topped with mushrooms and green peppers like what would make sense.
    • Speaking of MoneyBART, during the couch gag in the sweatshop we see the labourers painting on cels. Why? The Simpsons has been painted digitally for years, making all their labour pointless.


  • In "Trilogy of Error", Bart's story eventually connects with Lisa's story (specifically, when he exits the sewer and is bumped on the head by Marge's car). This basically means Bart and Milhouse were running away from Fat Tony and his goons in the caves for HOURS until he crossed paths with Marge. Seems pretty unlikely, unless both parties agreed to take a breather before resuming the chase a few times. This plot hole was even addressed in the audio commentary on the season 12 set.
    • This story made no sense! Tell the people!
  • "I'm a level five vegan. I won't eat anything that casts a shadow." So... he just drinks water and that's it?
    • Well, it could be water with vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients dissolved in it at low enough concentrations not to make the water opaque. I suppose it depends to some extent on how you interpret "casts a shadow."
    • Keep in mind he also says he was into Yoga "before it was cool". Either he's in his 40s or he enjoys making things up to sound impressive.
  • Is Waylon older or younger than Homer? In one episode we see Waylon Smithers as a baby and Homer is 12. But Troy McLure said that Waylon was in his forties. Mutation from the plant?
    • Older, I bet. His dad's body was partially decomposed.
      • That doesn't happen over a few days or weeks? He was hardly preserved, especially where Homer discovered him.
      • It doesn't help that some episodes show Smithers and Homer in High School together.
  • In the episode where Santa's Little Helper gets a mate and impregnates her, The Simpsons give away the puppies, but what happened to their mother? (Also, why did they let Mr. Burns make money off the Puppies racing? Homer says at the end he's depressed he gave them away, but they didn't, Burns stole them!)
    • They were giving the puppies away for free, actually. They just didn't want to give them to Burns, hence his dastardly scheme or stealing them out of the box while the Simpsons' backs were to him. In the end Lisa and Bart could see that Burns loved the puppies like any good owner, so they let him keep them. Homer was depressed because they turned out to be champion racers. As for the female greyhound, I'm guessing she eventually was given away as well.
  • It bugs me that Homer starts out not knowing a thing about music, but as the show progresses, Homer is seen to have musical talent in several forms: he was in a boys' chior, he could sing opera if he was flat on his back, he was in a barbershop quartet that won a grammy, he could play a rake with a leaf and make it sound like a guitar, he went to some kind of rock and roll camp and he was in a grunge band for several years after high-school. Many of these examples mess up the continuity of the show. For example, if Homer was a grunge rocker, then why didn't anyone recognize him when he was doing the thing where he gets shot in the stomach with the cannon? If he can sing along with a quartet, why does he sound so bad when he sings by himself?
    • I'm gonna go with the guess that every season has a different continuity. It would make sense that Homer doesn't remember - what with the brain damage and all. And he could be insecure and feels the need to sing with others.
      • Not really. Several events are alluded to across-seasons, like Sideshow Bob's escapades, Homer being an astronaut, Maggie shooting Mr. Burns, Bart owning Stampy, Maude dying etc. etc. That said, the show mostly adheres to Negative Continuity.
  • Why is it that Marge tries to be a Moral Guardian (at least in the earlier seasons), but in one of the Halloween episodes, she has no objection to Bart dressing up as Alex deLarge?
    • It's a classic film. That makes it okay.
    • There's also the possibility that Marge just doesn't know who he is. Marge never struck me as the type of person who was very well-versed in movie trivia.
  • Here's a bit of Fridge Logic from the third season episode "Black Widower," when Sideshow Bob and Aunt Selma are married. During the episode, the Simpson family is seen watching a VHS recording of Bob and Selma's honeymoon ("And after we watch this, we can tape over it! Heh heh heh."). The events on the tape, which portray Sideshow Bob's need for a gas fireplace (plot point), ends with Selma asking that they make love. This cuts (almost immediately, if I'm not mistaken) to Bob running to the bathroom to clean up after having sex with Selma. This implies that little, if any, time was allowed for the VHS tape to travel from the hotel to the Simpson's home. Like most of the inconsistencies in the show, I presume this is another case of Rule of Funny.
    • It's possible they were having sex on another occasion. Bob would have to continue playing the role of loving husband, after all. But the way it was cut just makes it funnier.
  • in Homerpalooza, why doesn't wear something to protect his stomach? sure it would've ruined the act he was doing but he wouldn't of ended up having donuts from HFIL


  • In "Flaming Moe", what happened to Mr. Largo? He found his soulmate, got replaced and then... his replacement moved away but... he didn't come back. What becomes of the music class? Unless there was a scene showing him coming back and I just missed it...
  • At the end of "Old Money", Grandpa Simpson decides that the money he'd inherited from a short-term romantic partner should go towards improving the facilities at the retirement home. This is after having selflessly decided not to spend the money on himself, after Lisa convinced him that those who really deserved the money were the homeless/sick/needy, and after visiting a casino in an attempt to increase the total amount available (figuring that he could help more people that way). So why does he still spend the money on people already living in private accommodation and who are being looked after by full-time carers, when he'd previously decided there were people far more deserving of the money?
    • To be fair, the treatment the people in that home receive has been consistently shown to be terrible. It's a little selfish to spend it on his own home, yes, but those old people must have pretty miserable lives, living in the cheapest retirement home their families could find, and apparently hardly ever getting visits. Grampa seems better off than the rest of them.
    • You obviously didn't watch the episode. Grandpa's rest home suffered from a leaky roof, damaged furniture (the pool table didn't have any netting in the pockets, for example) and was generally falling apart. Like the previous poster noted, Grandpa and the other rest home tenants were living in squalor, something which is often Truth in Television, sadly enough. Fixing the retirement home allows the residents to live in comfort and dignity, something that Grandpa lampshades in the last line of the episode when he invites the other residents into the Beatrice Simmons Memorial Dining Hall.
  • In the episode where Marge starts hanging out with some old friends, and Bart has to hang out with her friend's children, they pressure him into sliding down a hill on an ice cube or something. And Bart has DOUBTS about it, finding it "too dangerous", and doesn't want to hang out with the other boys much. Seriously, Bart is supposed to be a "bad boy". Hell, past episodes have shown him doing MUCH more dangerous things. What was the deal with that?
    • It could be a sign that Bart is starting to mature, or remember that Even Bart has Standards. Or he knew that sliding down the hill was obviously dangerous and didn't realize how dangerous some of the other things he has done were.
  • There's something I've never been able to figure out about the episode, "Black Widower", and this, why? Why did Sideshow Bob want to kill Selma? The episode indicate that it was pre-meditated, but what was the motive? I doubt it was revenge because Bart doesn't strike me as someone who would miss Selma too badly.
    • It's said earlier in the episode that Selma won a lot of money in a lawsuit. Sideshow Bob probably didn't plan her murder until sometime after they met and fell in love.
  • While I enjoyed the episode "Homer the Great", there was one part about the ending that was a little confusing. #1 laments that "As long as we are Stone Cutters, he will control our lives." Wait a minute, what are they worried about Homer controlling their lives for? He can barely run his own.
    • I think that's the point. Instead of being the power behind the scenes, they're going to spend all their time re-enacting the civil war with monkies.
  • The episode where Homer decided not to go to church - Marge and the kids go to church, despite it being so cold that they end up being trapped inside the church due to the ice. Why couldn't Marge just skip one day of church? Why would she risk the lives of her and her children like that?
  • What race are the Simpsons? It seems that "Yellow" is the equivalent to "White" for Caucasian people in the Simpson's universe, for example Jessica Lovejoy refers to part as "Poor yellow trash" and prior to her birth Homer says it doesn't matter if Maggie is a boy or a girl as long as she has "Yellow skin and four fingers and toes" or something to that effect but the show has referenced "White" people on a few occasions, such as a black comedian on TV comparing white and black drivers and I think on a few other occasions as well.
    • Speaking of this, why did they add the notion that their art style is the actual anatomy of the people? Most cartoons make it seem like an art style, but they're supposed to look like we do in real life.
      • Probably by the time celebrity cameos and other people that were not the original cast started to be depicted in a more-or-less realistic manner. In fact, the Simpsons(the family) might be the only people in the show with that anomaly where your hair and your forehead are indistinguishable(yes, I know, a lampshade was hung).
  • In the episode "The Ned-Liest Catch" (season 22 ep 22) what exactly is so bad about Krabappel having to stay in a room all day with pay? I'd use that time to catch up on my books and tv shows. Or, if I was feeling more ambitious, it sounds like the perfect time to study and change into a career that's not so soul crushing.
    • Maybe I need to watch it again, but I think they didn't allow any such thing to be brought in. It's punishment, after all.
      • They were allowed. The rules were - shoes remain on, cellphones remain off, and no wi-fi.
    • Not everyone likes cooping themselves up inside with books and TV as their only partners?
      • True, but in the episode, people were resorting to staring at cracks in the wall. I think anything else would be better than that.
  • It just hit me: how can Homer and Bart start playing con tricks on the people of Springfield when pretty much everyone know them? It really hit me with that trick where Bart pretends to be blind. And to have a deaf sister. And apparently be Homer's brother. Yes, what.
  • From "The Ned-Liest Catch" that kind of bugged me: How can a straight-laced, ultra-vanilla conservative Christian like Ned know who Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer is, especially to the point that he recognizes him by sight alone? Just doesn't make sense.
    • Ned has Guilty Pleasures like the rest of us, he was once shown likeing sitcoms, and he is a fanboy of the Beatles. Rock music is probabley another one of his hobbies he does not like admitting.
    • Lots of Conservative Christians enjoy rock music.
  • In "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge": If Becky hates heavy metal, what was she doing at a concert during Otto's flashback?
    • It may have been a music festival whith metal and other types of music.
      • Correct. The episode says that they met specifically at Woodstock '99, which was most definitely not just Metal acts.
  • In the episode where Maggie is believed to have an IQ higher than Lisa, why is it someone as smart as Lisa is unaware that age is a factor in calculating someone's IQ?
  • I've had one that's been weighing on my mind since I was 12: Why is it that Bart (and, to a lesser extent, Lisa) still helps Krusty out of every single problem that he has (one or two choice exceptions aside)? Krusty can't even remember Barts name, let alone all he does for him, which is actually referred to in one episode where after Krusty asks his name, Bart tells him how he saved him from jail, reunited him with his estranged father AND saved his career, none of which Krusty can remember. True, Krusty is a jaded drug addict and cares little for anyone, but you'd think he'd remember such monumental occasions, and you'd also think that Bart would begin to see his "Hero" as not all he's cracked up to be (As I recall, he shrugs off the occasion that Krusty smoked crack in front of him). This may seem nitpicky, but am I really the only one who's been wondering?
    • Bart knows how bad Krusty is, but chooses just to idolize the character he plays on Krusty the Klown Show anyway. In what episode its shown that Homer is such a bad father that Bart looks for father figures everywhere, including Krusty. As for the second problem, the drugs might be affecting Krusty's brain, and Krusty spends most of his time drunk and not able to remember anything anyway.
  • Are the characters ever going to age, even a little?
    • In Season 1, Marge had a birthday. Homer's had a few birthdays. Bart and Lisa both had birthdays in season 3, plus others later. Yes, I know this barely helps.
  • Ok this is bugging me for a long time and I have no idea how it even works. Ok in "Homer Scissorhands", Taffy breaks up with Milhouse because she thinks that Milhouse is still in love with Lisa just because Lisa stalked them? WTF!!! I mean there isn’t a single scene, nor even a single line of dialogue, where Milhouse shows himself to still be in love with Lisa, he never mentions her in front of Taffy and he doesn’t even let out a swooning sigh when Lisa intrudes on them at the end. Just what is wrong with Taffy? I mean if I introduce someone I was once with to my fiancee' then this wouldn't happen. I'm guessing Taffy really is so thinly conceived and her story so flat that she’s only in three scenes... and they couldn't even spell her voice actress' name right. But seriously she breaks up with Milhouse just because Lisa stalked them...EXPLAIN EPISODE, EXPLAIN!
    • Two Things: Seasonal Rot and Fanon Discontinuity. Remember them.
      • I actually don't know that those mean. Explain please.
        • Have you tried clicking the links?
    • Alternately, Status Quo Is God.
      • I still say that is the worst excuse for a break-up ever. Also they never reveal why Taffy liked Milhouse in the first place.
  • In that one flashforward episode, why did Bart's girlfriend dump him just because he was leaving to save his sister?
    • Bart's girlfriend wanted somebody who could do something with his life and well Bart just can't do that. The reason why he saved his sister, was because she had a brighter future than he did.
  • What kind of terrible car company only has 82 thousand dollars between it and bankruptcy? Granted the "Homer" was a massive flop, but that one prototype cost Herb his entire company?
    • I'm not sure that it was the cost of the car that ruined Herb's company, it was the fact it was so god awful. He was effectively saying that he's ruined because said car was going to absolutely wreck his reputation on top of costing a huge amount of money to make.
    • Further, when Herb reappears one senses we are meant to take at face value the fact that Homer ruined him. But in a very real way, Homer was a bystander to those events. There was no malice in Homer's actions, just ineptitude, but the true ineptitude was Herb's, since he entrusted the fate of his company to a virtual stranger and even ignored all advice to the contrary. I find I watch the later episode with more sympathy for Homer than Herb, who is being vindictive while ignoring the fact that the real blame is his.
    • You're misunderstanding the episode. Herb's company didn't only have $82,000 left, but each "Homer" car would be priced at $82,000. That's an absurd amount of money to be paying for any car, even a high-class one. The price, combined with the fact that the car was so ridiculous that no one would ever buy it, meant that Herb's reputation was ruined. There are also signs that Powell Motors was in trouble long before Homer came along. In a few conversations with his executives, Herb mentions that Powell Motors is losing ground to the Japanese and "getting killed on the foreign market." Chances are that this was Herb's make-or-break effort to save his company.
  • In Homr, it's explained by the researchers that Homer sticking crayons into his nose must have been the cause for his stupidity. Seems reasonable at first, but he would have to be stupid enough to shove sixteen crayons into his nose in the first place. Especially at age six.
    • Maybe he was experimenting something and it backfired.
  • In "Bart The Fink", Krusty apparently dies in a plane crash. At the funeral, Troy McClure announces more funeral services later, adding "You must be over 18 for the ten o'clock. It gets a little blue." What does this mean?
    • "Blue" can mean "obscene".
  • Lisa is an atheist, right? But wasn't there an episode where Mr. Burns bought out the town's (only?) church? And then Lisa goes on a crusade to end Burns' control of the church, right? But if she's an atheist, why should she care?
    • She's a Buddhist IIRC.
    • That was actually the episode where she became a Buddhist. Before that her religious beliefs were basically whatever suited the episode best.
  • Why exactly is 90% of Springfield's citizens total idiots and there is a handful of smart ones like Lisa and the members of the Springfield Mensa. This was even lamp-shaded in the Fairly Oddparents special "Channel Chasers" where Timmy in a Simpsons-verse claims that "This world makes adults stupid". Oddly enough the African American citizens are shown to be more smarter and competent with their work like Carl, Officer Lou, and Doctor Hibbert, and they don't pull similar mistakes the other citizens would pull.
  • How come Marge objects to Lisa having wine yet is okay with Bart?
    • Because Lisa has a hope in hell of being successful.
  • What's with the increasing inconsistencies in the show? Throughout the series, Homer's dead dream to be a rock star was mentioned from time to time. He was never able to fullfill the dream because of family, and there was even an entire episode dedicated to this. Yet in a newer episode, Homer was shown as inventing the Grunge genre and being a successful rock star for a period of time. What?
  • In "Homer the Heretic", the fire which burns the simpsons house takes place during church, so how could Ned (who attends the same church as the Simpsons) see the house on fire?
    • For that mattter, when is church in Springfield? Other eps have it taking place on Sunday morning, but in "Lisa the Greek", church is seen happening the same time as the Superbowl. The Superbowl doesnt usually start until early evening, and even pre-game coverage isnt until the afternoon.
      • Some churches hold evening services.
  • Homer's unbelievable stupidity aside, in the Treehouse of Horror VI vignette Homer³, why did he try to jump across the massive & ever-expanding wormhole in the 3D plane, when he could have at least attempted to run around it and reach Bart safely?
    • Because Bart told him to?
  • In "Girly Edition", it's established that the junkyard is a long distance from the studio, long enough that Lisa wonders if Bart will be able to make it in time on his bike. So how did Lisa get to the junkyard so quickly on her bike?
    • Because she rode it very fast?
      • We're talking a distance so far that Bart would rather take the chopper instead. Is it really likely that Lisa was able to make it to the junkyard on a bike before the Bart's People segment concluded? I doubt it.
      • Or maybe the junkyard isn't that far and Lisa was just goading Bart because she knows who Bart will encounter when he gets there. Claiming to have a chopper could have been Bart goading her right back. Did we ever actually see it?
  • Why is it that in-universe, there's the movie company "Mixar", but Lisa says she's all their movies... Except Cars?!
  • In the Halloween segment "Time & Punishment", Homer says "I'm the first non-Brazilian person to travel backwards through time!" What's that a reference to? Admittedly, when I was a kid, I thought he said "brilliant."
  • In "Marge's Son Poisoning", Marge is sad that nobody wants to ride her tandem bike with her, yet she only asked Homer, Bart, and Maggie. Why was Lisa left out?
    • Knowing Lisa, some silly ultra-liberal reason.
    • She secretly hates Lisa for being a vegetarian. Remember her mentioning that she slips a little meat into Lisa's food?
  • So Nedna's official. But I'm confused on the status: are they married, engaged, or simply dating?
    • Dating.
  • The Halloween story "Don't Have a Cow Mankind" makes no sense to me. How many supplies did the Simpsons have to last almost a month trapped in the house? Why did the writers make a real illness like Mad-Cow Disease the cause of the zombie apocalypse? Why wasn't the burger at Krusty Burger spoiled from sitting there for a month? Why didn't the military just take a sample of Bart's blood to make a vaccine? Why was Bart immune in the first place? Why was it that Marge didn't know about communion? Was that a shot at Christians? Did Seth McFarlane make that joke? How does Bart bathing in soup make a cure? How was the cure administered to the munchers? Why the heck wasn't Homer cured? It just raises too many questions.
  • Did they make "The Food Wife" just to say "WE KNOW WHAT VIDEO GAMES AND FOOD BLOGS/FOODIES ARE!"?
  • The Simpsons occasionally decides to slightly misname celebrities (as "Woodsy Allen," for example) and licensed characters, but does this so rarely that it's jarring. In one episode, Marvel characters are renamed "The Thung" and "The Mulk"... why? I'm guessing Stan Lee, who has guest starred on the show, will not sue!
    • Especially when weighed against the startlingly accurate portrayal of D.C. copyright characters like Plastic Man and Marvel ones like Iron Man in "Homer the Whooper."
  • The show frequently mentions the real franchise Star Wars. Yet in "Co-Dependent's Day", Star Wars apparently doesn't exist and is replaced with an expy franchise called Cosmic Wars. I know it's done for the purposes of parody, but it's still very strange.
  • Of Apu and Manjula's octuplets, how many are male and how many are female? The show is never clear on this.
    • They gave us a good glimpse and their names in their debut episode. I don't remember, personally. But there are at least 3 girls, I know that.
    • There are four girls: Poonam, Sashi, Pria, and Uma. And four boys: Anoop, Sandeep, Nabendu, and Gheet.
  • Krusty. On some episodes he's practically unknown local low budget kid's show host, in other episodes he's a media empire on par with Disney.
  • Why does Lisa constantly say that she has no friends despite her friendships with Janey, Ralph, and Alison? it doesn't make sense! Or she just forgets she has friends.
  • It may be just me, as I haven't seen every episode, but have Bart and Maggie ever had any sort of character interaction at all?
    • Well, he gave her that teddy bear...
  • I don't get how Moe can be completely poor when he runs his own business. He has a pretty damn successful bar with many regular customers, and yet he resorts to using a rope for a belt in one episode?
    • He only has about half-a-dozen regulars - Homer, Lenny, Carl, Barney (who no longer drinks alcohol), and a couple of others and there doesn't seem to be much drop in trade, judging by the reaction when someone new comes in. And he probably owes a lot of money to the bank for those times he has re-vamped the bar into an English pub, a theme restaurant and a hangout for hipsters.
  • Now we know why Lindsay Naegle has different jobs (She's a sexual predator) and with Gil it's obvious, but is there a excuse why Squeaky Voiced Teen, Sarcastic Middle Aged man, and "That jerk who always says "M'yeeeesssss"?" have different jobs every time we see them? This is never explained yet Lindsay and Gil are the only ones with reasons behind their different jobs.
    • Perhaps they're Identical Strangers?
      • I don't think a teenager can hold one job for long thus explaining Squeaky Voice Teen's changing of jobs. As for the other guys, I don't know.
  • In the episode "You Only Move Twice", wouldn't Bart and Lisa have met with their new principal and discussed their strengths and weaknesses before heading to class? Or do the teachers at that school use the "sink or swim" approach? The remedial class notwithstanding.
  • Pranks and Green: This episode has one annoying problem. Why did Andy prank Skinner so badly in the origin for Skinner's strictness? I could understand if it was a small friendly prank, or if Skinner was an a-hole, but he trapped him in a pool full of worms for three days, and turned the cool principal the kids actually liked into a super strict militant principal.
    • Andy's shown to be a huge dick.
    • Yeah, but still, that was a massive Kick the Dog moment. Principal Skinner was shown to be an awesome and fun loving guy who actually made school fun for the kids, and he decided to lock him without food or water in a pool full of worms for DAYS. Just replacing the water with worms was enough, he didn't have to then close up the pool to keep him trapped.
  • In "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", why does Skinner need Bart to admit he was at the Quimby party as proof that he was skipping school, when he *saw* him skipping school, *and* they have his forged letter giving an excuse?
  • This is a very minor thing, but in the season one opening, if you look closely just before Bart steals the bus stop, on the wall of the building it says "Entrance and Parking", with an arrow pointing to the right. Yet right next to said building is a brick wall. So where exactly are they meant to park?
  • In Homer Goes To College, why wasn't Krusty allowed to show Bringing Down The Mouse(the one where Scratchy gets back at Itchy) in a million years?
    • Might've just been an exaggeration on Krusty's part.
  • In "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", when Comic Book Guy clicks onto Homer's website (which is meant to be confidential as to who is running it), you can clearly see Homer's face in the frame for a second, until the bag goes around his head. Why didn't someone see Homer's face and figure out that he was running the website? It bugs me.
    • Most Springfieldians are idiots and that bugs me as well. I mean if Springfieldians were smart then they would know "El Barto" is Bart but with a "El" and a "O" added to it.
      • Yeah, but in an earlier episode, Comic Book Guy was shown in Springfield's Mensa chapter. You'd think 'he' would notice.
        • Heh, are you under the impression that people in Mensa are actually smarter than ones who aren't...?
    • This requires about as much explanation as the fact that Apu's mother is never suspicious of Marge's claim to be married to Apu on the grounds that the children don't look remotely Indian, or the fact that the patrons of Lollapalooza characterize Homer as a "fat Jamaican guy" solely because he's wearing a Rastafarian hat. In other words: part of the joke.
      • So you mean that the sheer stupidity of Springfield is played for laughs, it just horrifies this troper if there really was a entire city full of morons and the stupid have power while the smart are outcasts... then again can the "smart" characters be funny too?
        • I'm not sure if depicting a character (or everyone) as comically oblivious is the same thing as depicting them as stupid.
      • Maybe Comic Book Guy doesn't know who Homer is?
  • In Bart the Genius, Bart wrote his name on Martin's intelligence test papers, which allowed him to attend a gifted school. At the end of the episode, he admitted to cheating on the test. So shouldn't Martin be attending the gifted school instead of continuing to attend Springfield Elementary?
    • Maybe because he personally doesn't want to?
    • It's the apathy inherent in The Simpsons (and real life) educational system. They thought they found an exceptional kid and made a token effort to move him to a better school. When the switch was discovered, rather than electing to actually fix the issue, they instead just elected to scrub the whole thing because it was less effort than making it right and less embarrassing than admitting to even more people that they'd been had.
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